And some feel science is boring unless it can be translated into everyday life in meaningful ways.
On Oct 20, 3:50 pm, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > We travel at 60k plus miles an hour in the solar system and 500K > through the galaxy in our system. I tend to believe we can measure > this kind of thing and that we are always left with questions like > Allan's about before after and beyond. Hitch-hikers' Guide probably > gets to the irony. Quite a few of us discount priests and text- > authority without giving up on spirit. Spinoza remains the clearest > example. > > Creation stories end up in infinite regress - scientific and otherwise > - and beg the question of 'what came before that' by positing a > fiction of something that needs no creator or origin. I don't believe > god whipped up the Grand Canyon, but in the limits of our thinking > something whipped up something that led to the evolution of our planet > etc. I tend to think science rather than literature may lead to a > different way of seeing this and surviving until this is possible. > Literature is generally bland and lacks depth - though there are great > moments. I suspect one of the key issues is raised by Gabby a lot of > the time - we need to replace current authority and know the irony is > such attempts just produce the same old business as usual (WB Yeates > was good on this). > > The stuff on thermodynamics above is very similar in method to > Einstein and what we might now term Wittgensteinian deconstruction - > trying to find the common elements and mistakes in various competing > arguments and readdress the apparent conflict. Molly has some words > on this too. > > On 20 Oct, 20:37, Molly <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > google books had a copy up online, it may still be there. Used book > > outlets like Alibris will allow you to put in the book you are searching > > for and notify you when a copy becomes available for sale by a store that > > uses their service. Other than that, you may find some good articles about > > it with excerpts online. for Einstein fans, it is a favorite. > > > On Saturday, October 20, 2012 10:14:03 AM UTC-4, Allan Heretic wrote: > > > > how does a person get a hold of the original text..?? > > > Allan > > > > On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 3:10 PM, Molly <[email protected] > > > <javascript:>>wrote: > > > >> The Einstein "The World As I See It," originally began as his ponderance > > >> of something greater than science, and acknowledgement of spirit in > > >> action. > > >> The original edition is the best, as his editors put together texts with > > >> lectures for him under the same name, and those books have an entirely > > >> different flavor. > > > >> From my view, "knowing" is not the end of it, but the beginning. > > > >> On Saturday, October 20, 2012 8:09:19 AM UTC-4, gabbydott wrote: > > > >>> Honestly, Vam, I don't think that it was Einstein's lack of knowledge > > >>> that made him pose such a daft (in the sense of limited) question. I > > >>> read > > >>> this as a description of the state of occidental science at his time - > > >>> the > > >>> conflict between the ontological and the constructivist explanatory > > >>> models > > >>> of the nature of knowledge. > > > >>> On Sat, Oct 20, 2012 at 8:41 AM, Vam <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >>>> You spoke of Einstein, about his ” only ” interest being whether > > >>>> God<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God> had > > >>>> any choice in manifesting the universe and this observed creation. > > > >>>> My own suggestion is that if we do not know enough we will always think > > >>>> along those lines. > > > >>>> To the uninitiate, the desktops of today would seem to be thinking > > >>>> entities ... > > > >>>> *So, do we know enough ?* > > > >>>> <https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-EBJSz8MhWQU/UIJGzwpvR3I/AAAAAAAAB0...> > > > >>>> On Saturday, October 20, 2012 6:36:45 AM UTC+5:30, rigsy03 wrote: > > > >>>>> I took a course on the Snow-Leavis(1959-1962) controversy in the > > >>>>> mid-'70's. Perhaps we should then conclude scientists do not > > >>>>> understand humanism? Other works involved included various essays and > > >>>>> books by Aldous Huxley ("Literature and Science") and Bronowski > > >>>>> ("Science and Human Values"). Not sure that "incomprehension and > > >>>>> dislike"(Snow) between the two groups has changed at all when > > >>>>> considering the gap between rich and poor nations, smart weapons, etc. > > >>>>> as science and militarism promote the self-interest of various > > >>>>> nations/ > > >>>>> political theories and practices. Should we quibble that Nazi > > >>>>> scientists propelled the USA moon landing? At least the moon survived. > > > >>>>> On Oct 19, 1:37 pm, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > > >>>>> > The below is rather long, but physics is returning to some of the > > >>>>> > ideas of James Maxwell. My dog is named after him. Years ago, we > > >>>>> > were told their were two cultures ( CP Snow) - one knew the 2nd law > > >>>>> of > > >>>>> > thermodynamics and the other did not (literary types). The 2nd law > > >>>>> > involved was a straw man. The following, as Max needs his walk, is > > >>>>> > paraphrased from last week's New Scientist. > > > >>>>> > A few decades after Carnot, the German physicist Rudolph Clausius > > >>>>> > explained such phenomena in terms of a quantity characterising > > >>>>> > disorder that he called entropy. In this picture, the universe works > > >>>>> > on the back of processes that increase entropy - for example > > >>>>> > dissipating heat from places where it is concentrated, and therefore > > >>>>> > more ordered, to cooler areas, where it is not. That predicts a > > >>>>> grim > > >>>>> > fate for the universe itself. Once all heat is maximally dissipated, > > >>>>> > no useful process can happen in it any more: it dies a "heat death". > > >>>>> A > > >>>>> > perplexing question is raised at the other end of cosmic history, > > >>>>> too. > > >>>>> > If nature always favours states of high entropy, how and why did the > > >>>>> > universe start in a state that seems to have been of comparatively > > >>>>> low > > >>>>> > entropy? At present we have no answer, and there is an intriguing > > >>>>> > alternative view. > > > >>>>> > Perhaps because of such undesirable consequences, the legitimacy of > > >>>>> > the second law was for a long time questioned. The charge was > > >>>>> > formulated with the most striking clarity by the Scottish physicist > > >>>>> > James Clerk Maxwell in 1867. He was satisfied that inanimate matter > > >>>>> > presented no difficulty for the second law. In an isolated system, > > >>>>> > heat always passes from the hotter to the cooler, and a neat clump > > >>>>> of > > >>>>> > dye molecules readily dissolves in water and disperses randomly, > > >>>>> never > > >>>>> > the other way round. Disorder as embodied by entropy does always > > >>>>> > increase. Maxwell's problem was with life. Living things have > > >>>>> > "intentionality": they deliberately do things to other things to > > >>>>> make > > >>>>> > life easier for themselves. Conceivably, they might try to reduce > > >>>>> the > > >>>>> > entropy of their surroundings and thereby violate the second law. > > >>>>> > Such a possibility is highly disturbing to physicists. Either > > >>>>> > something is a universal law or it is merely a cover for something > > >>>>> > deeper. Yet it was only in the late 1970s that Maxwell's entropy- > > >>>>> > fiddling "demon" was laid to rest. Its slayer was the US physicist > > >>>>> > Charles Bennett, who built on work by his colleague at IBM, Rolf > > >>>>> > Landauer, using the theory of information developed a few decades > > >>>>> > earlier by Claude Shannon. An intelligent being can certainly > > >>>>> > rearrange things to lower the entropy of its environment. But to do > > >>>>> > this, it must first fill up its memory, gaining information as to > > >>>>> how > > >>>>> > things are arranged in the first place. > > > >>>>> > This acquired information must be encoded somewhere, presumably in > > >>>>> the > > >>>>> > demon's memory. When this memory is finally full, or the being dies > > >>>>> or > > >>>>> > otherwise expires, it must be reset. Dumping all this stored, > > >>>>> ordered > > >>>>> > information back into the environment increases entropy - and this > > >>>>> > entropy increase, Bennett showed, will ultimately always be at least > > >>>>> > as large as the entropy reduction the demon originally achieved. > > >>>>> Thus > > >>>>> > the status of the second law was assured, albeit anchored in a > > >>>>> mantra > > >>>>> > of Landauer's that would have been unintelligible to the > > >>>>> 19th-century > > >>>>> > progenitors of thermodynamics: that "information is physical". > > >>>>> > James Joule's 19th century experiments with beer can be used to > > >>>>> > illustrate this idea. The English brewer, whose name lives on in the > > >>>>> > standard unit of energy, sealed beer in a thermally isolated tub > > >>>>> > containing a paddle wheel that was connected to weights falling > > >>>>> under > > >>>>> > gravity outside. The wheel's rotation warmed the beer, increasing > > >>>>> the > > >>>>> > disorder of its molecules and therefore its entropy. But hard as we > > >>>>> > might try, we simply cannot use Joule's set-up to decrease the > > >>>>> beer's > > >>>>> > temperature, even by a fraction of a millikelvin. Cooler beer is, in > > >>>>> > this instance, a state regrettably beyond the reach of physics. > > > >>>>> > The question is whether we can express the whole of physics simply > > >>>>> by > > >>>>> > enumerating possible and impossible processes in a given situation. > > >>>>> > This is very different from how physics is usually phrased, in both > > >>>>> > the classical and quantum regimes, in terms of states of systems and > > >>>>> > equations that describe how those states change in time. The blind > > >>>>> > alleys down which the standard approach can lead are easiest to > > >>>>> > understand in classical physics, where the dynamical equations we > > >>>>> > derive allow a whole host of processes that patently do not occur - > > >>>>> > the ones we have to conjure up the laws of thermodynamics expressly > > ... > > read more »- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - --
